III.

In Greece, the brave heart's Holy Land,
Its soldier-song the bugle sings;
And I have buckled on my brand,

And waited but the sea-wind's wings,

To bear me where, or lost or won
Her battle, in its frown or smile,
Men live with those of Marathon,
Or die with those of Scio's isle;
And find in Valor's tent or tomb,
In life or death, a glorious home.

IV.

I could have left but yesterday

The scene of my boy-years behind, And floated on my careless way

Wherever willed the breathing wind.

I could have bade adieu to aught

I've sought, or met, or welcomed here,
Without an hour of shaded thought,
A sigh, a murmur, or a tear.
Such was I yesterday-but then
I had not known thee, Magdalen.

V.

To-day there is a change within me,
There is a weight upon my brow,

And Fame, whose whispers once could win me
From all I loved, is powerless now.

MAGDALEN

There ever is a form, a face

Of maiden beauty in my dreams, Speeding before me, like the race

To ocean of the mountain-streamsWith dancing hair, and laughing eyes, That seem to mock me as it flies.

VI.

My sword-it slumbers in its sheath;

My hopes their starry light is gone;

My heart-the fabled clock of death

Beats with the same low, lingering tone:

And this, the land of Magdalen,

Seems now the only spot on earth

Where skies are blue and flowers are green;
And here I build my household hearth,

And breathe my song of joy, and twine
A lovely being's name with mine.

VII.

In vain! in vain! the sail is spread;
To sea! to sea! my task is there;
But when among the unmourned dead
They lay me, and the ocean air
Brings tidings of my day of doom,

Mayst thou be then, as now thou art,

The load-star of a happy home;

In smile and voice, in eye and heart
The same as thou hast ever been,
The loved, the lovely Magdalen.

59

FROM THE ITALIAN.

YES with the same blue witchery as those

Of Psyche, which caught Love in his own wiles;

Lips of the breath and hue of the red rose,

That move but with kind words and sweetest smiles;

A power of motion and of look, whose art
Throws, silently, around the wildest heart

The net it would not break; a form which vies
With that the Grecian imaged in his mind,
And gazed upon in dreams, and sighed to find
His breathing marble could not realize.
Know ye
this picture? There is one alone
Can call its pencilled lineaments her own.
She whom, at morning, when the summer air
Wanders, delighted, o'er her face of flowers,
And lingers in the ringlets of her hair,
We deem the Hebe of Jove's banquet-hours;
She who, at evening, when her fingers press
The harp, and wake its harmonies divine,
Seems sweetest-voiced and loveliest of the Nine,
The minstrel of the bowers of happiness,
She whom the Graces nurtured-at her birth,
The sea-born Goddess and the Huntress maid,

FROM THE ITALIAN.

Beings whose beauty is not of the earth,

Came from their myrtle home and forest shade,
Blending immortal joy with mortal mirth
And Dian said, "Fair sister, be she mine
In her heart's purity, in beauty thine."
The smiling infant listened and obeyed.

61

TRANSLATION.

FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.

A

GAIN ye come, again ye throng around me,

Dim, shadowy beings of my boyhood's dream! Still shall I bless, as then, your spell that bound me? Still bend to mists and vapors as ye seem? Nearer ye come: I yield me as ye found me In youth your worshipper; and as the stream Of air that folds you in its magic wreaths,

Flows by my lips, youth's joy my bosom breathes.

Lost forms and loved ones ye are with you bringing,
And dearest images of happier days,

First-love and friendship in your path upspringing,

Like old tradition's half-remembered lays,

And long-slept sorrows waked, whose dirge-like singing
Recalls my life's strange labyrinthine maze,

And names the heart-mourned many a stern doom,
Ere their year's summer, summoned to the tomb.

They hear not these my last songs, they whose greet

ing

Gladdened my first; my spring-time friends have

gone,